3. Come to the ball

My first hoops lesson was spoken aloud by my father and mashed into my memory by a speedy seven-year-old named J.J. Several of the fundamental principles that I’ve taken from the game can be traced to a single seed that they planted a quarter century ago.

It was the end of one of the first practices of my first season of organized sports. After running an occasionally attentive group of second-graders through the most rudimentary of drills, our coach provided us a single play. This one design was to be the blueprint for our movements on the offensive end of the floor. My role was to start near the baseline, then come off of a screen to the top of the key. As I arrived, a player on the opposite wing was to pass me the ball.

I do not remember what I was supposed to do with the ball once I caught it. In retrospect, I think the play was designed to give me the ball, a little bit of space, and a running start towards the basket. I was the offense on that team. In a possibly related story, we went 0-9 that year. I specifically remember losing one game 16-2. I had the two.

(Rule #1: if I’m the best you’ve got, then what you’ve got is trouble.)

Having equipped us for competition, the coach then organized a brief scrimmage against another team for the last few minutes of practice. We had the ball. In a bold tactical decision, we ran our one play. Given the sequence of events that ensued, I imagine it wasn’t the first time our opponents – specifically J.J. – had seen it.

As I curled around the screen, J.J. anticipated the pass and sprinted towards the point where the ball and I had planned to meet. Seeing his momentum and fearing a collision, I stopped and hoped for the ball to elude his grasp and travel safely to me. The basketball foolishly continued on its straight path (as balls in flight are known to do). As a result, J.J. easily intercepted the pass and headed to the other end of the floor for a lay-up.

My father, who had arrived to take me home from practice, yelled at me from the sideline, “You’ve got to come to the ball!”

He had seen my hesitation and recognized that I had to shorten the distance of the pass to prevent the defender from disrupting the play. The only way to do that was to continue running in the direction of the passer until I caught the ball. The play depended on that decisive action. After rattling through our rolodex of options, we ran the play again. I sprinted off the screen. The pass was thrown. Without hesitation, J.J. again flew towards the ball. I ran as hard as I could. I got to the ball first. Then came the part that I hadn’t been told.

J.J. flattened me. Like a penny on train tracks.

My father had led his little horse to the proverbial water. It just turned out that the water was a tidal wave. Like a football free safety exploding towards an exposed wide receiver, J.J. knocked me into the air – it was one of those hits where I actually had time to think, “Hey, that ground thing should have been here by n…,” before I actually became one with the floor near the center circle. After running a quick inventory of body parts, I glared up from the ground in the direction of my father. He looked back at me. He had several choices.

He could have explained the value of individual sacrifice for the good of the whole – “taking one for the team” – or perhaps the importance of doing the right thing in the face of danger, pain, and suffering. By absorbing that punishment and drawing a foul call, I retained possession of the ball for my team. In a normal game, it is possible that I would have earned free throws and the opportunity to score two uncontested points – no small matter for a team that once tallied that amount over the course of an entire game.

He also could have explained the significance of learning how to fall down and how to get back up. At this point I’ve been knocked out of the sky in more ways than I can count. I’ve been flipped forward, backward, and sideways – I even flipped over a chain-link fence once. I’ve run into steel poles, brick walls, and 300-pound kids that might as well have been brick walls. That’s only the literal falls; the figurative ones have been harder. In both categories, there’s a value in knowing how to land and how to rise again. There may be no more important ability. This was my first time. My father could’ve noted that I should get used to it.

He further could have explained the importance of the little things. In the game of basketball, as in most things, the glory is in the spectacular – the dunk, the no-look pass, the killer crossover – but the simple is both more necessary and more significant. Everything in those two plays is the same – the design of our play, the actions of my teammates, the defense, J.J. sprinting towards the ball – except for one subtle decision. On the first play, I curled a little slower off the screen and faded away from the pass. On the second play, I cut sharply and took a direct path to the ball. One choice results in two points for the opposing team; the other keeps the ball for my team. If someone that didn’t understand the game saw only one of the two plays, they probably would have thought that the version they saw was inevitable. Nothing is inevitable. The subtle decision made the difference. There are a thousand little moments like that in a game, any one of which might possibly decide the outcome.

As a result, he could have continued, there is a simple lesson in what just happened to you, son: make the play in front of you. No matter how small, no matter how subtle – if you have the ability to make a positive contribution, you do it. Don’t worry about pacing yourself. Don’t worry about getting hurt. Don’t quit. Play as hard as you can, as long as you can, then walk off the court with no regrets about the things you could have tried to do. Make the play in front of you.

In a word: hustle.

He could have said all of those things, but I wouldn’t have understood any of them. The deeper truths are a bit beyond a seven-year-old’s understanding, particularly one still not yet in full command of his senses. So he looked back at me and shrugged with a look that said, “Sorry. It happens. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

I continued to glare at my father as if he had knocked me over. It is one of the patterns of my childhood: I did what my parents told me, sometimes begrudgingly, and that trust usually led me to truth.

Some lessons take longer than others. All of them have to start somewhere. Most of them have to be repeated. Many of them you have to learn for yourself. A few of them have to be learned at the wrong end of a train. One of them I’ve held on to since that day.

Always come to the ball.

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